


Too Much and Too Little

by Nyx_Fedra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Hermione Granger, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:41:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29183454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyx_Fedra/pseuds/Nyx_Fedra
Summary: He is empty, stalking the halls like a ghost trying to disappear.She’s trying to hold herself together so that she doesn’t explode into a million pieces.The balance it’s unexpected.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 16
Kudos: 107





	Too Much and Too Little

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language so mistakes are all my own.

One of the most embarrassing moments in Draco’s life happens during the purgatory that it’s his eight year.

He was on the floor of an old unused charms classroom when Granger walked in.

More precisely: Granger walked in while Blaise was fucking him on the floor of an old unused charms classroom.

He was not overwhelmed by embarrassment, even despite being naked from the waist down, even despite Blaise practically rutting into him hard enough he doesn’t hear Granger come in, or pretends not to hear her gasp as she takes in the scene before her, eyes wide as she stumbled back outside. The embarrassment is there, of course, just like the pleasure as Blaise hits just the right spot, his hand moving on his cock until they both come, yet not really.

He was still empty. Draco had barely felt anything in months.

After the war, feelings became somewhat as elusive as the wind, caressing his skin but leaving him empty handed. There had been a time, during the _before_ , when fear and anxiety had been overwhelming. He remembered his mother passing him books on Occlumency under the cover of darkness, he remembered feeling so much he couldn’t breathe. Until one day he didn’t, until the Dark Lord died and Draco just stood in the middle of the Great Hall, death and ruins all around him, as empty as the gutted castle.

If his probation hadn’t forced him to return to Hogwarts, he would have drunk himself to death but, alas, as alcohol at the school was generally frowned upon, he relied on the next best thing to make him feel something, to take his mind off the emptiness: sex.

People didn’t like him, not anymore. People were angry at him, even for things he didn’t do. And some people were less violent than others, some people, instead of cursing him in the corridors, instead of trying to hex him, just wanted to fuck him. Literally. Which was fine by Draco.

Blaise was one of those people.

He and Draco had once been friends, Quidditch teammates, now Blaise blamed him for the death of yet another stepfather, and fucked him so hard he left bruises all over him, and always in places that he knew would be uncomfortable. Draco didn’t mind, he didn’t mind as long as he could feel something for a couple of minutes, be it pain or pleasure. He didn’t even mind Granger’s stern look afterwards, as she tried to scold him despite the blush on her face.

‘You shouldn’t defile classrooms in such a manner… if you _really_ have to do it, at least you should be in a safe and comfortable environment’ she rambled ‘I will have to deduct points, of course, but if you and your boyfriend…’

‘Blaise is not my boyfriend’ he informed her, a bit amused that she would leap to such conclusions.

‘Well he seemed very… you seemed to like each other’ she stammered.

‘I don’t like anyone’

Draco didn’t like people. He really didn’t. People left him, like Pansy; people were disappointed in him, like his father; people were left as the shells of themselves because of him, like his mother; people died because of him, like Crabbe. People hated him, because he was Draco Malfoy. So really, why put in the effort?

‘Why would you sleep with someone you don’t like?’ her brows furrowed as if his statement was just another transfiguration problem to solve.

She was, despite the war, despite screaming on his drawing room floor, still a girl who believed one should ‘sleep’ only with the person they liked, loved. Once upon a time Draco had believed in something like that, too. The jealousy he felt for her was there, inside his soul, twisting, yet barely a whisper quickly suffocated by the emptiness.

‘Just to feel something’ he shrugged before walking away.

* * *

After a month, Blaise, surprisingly, started to be less angry, started to get interested in Ernie McMillain, of all people.

The bruises on Draco’s thighs, the scratches on his back, started to heal and disappear, the emptiness growing and growing, threatening to swallow him whole. So he moved on to Theodore.

Theodore was angry, too, but more at the wizarding world in general, more at himself, than at Draco.

‘I want you to be rough’ he told Draco the first time they’d stumbled in bed together.

Unlike Blaise, Theo preferred soft beds for rough sex. Draco did his best to comply, fucking him as hard as Blaise had fucked him, although he didn’t feel particularly inclined to hurt Theo, especially when Theo himself just sort of laid back and did nothing, as if that would make it somehow easier. They’d been friends once, he’d held Theo’s hand as his mother’s funeral a decade before, a lifetime ago. Their fathers had been friends, now they both rotted in Azkaban. They never talked about it, neither of them really wanted to, they barely talked at all, they usually just shagged and then went their way. It was fine for Draco, Blaise hadn’t talked to him much either, and Draco himself had very little to say, to others, the world, even himself.

Which was fine. He was a little bit empty, but fine. _Fine_. Maybe it was one of those blessings in disguise. What would happen if he could feel it again, the weight of his reality? It was better not to think about it, feel it.

Despite the slight discomfort the occasion has stirred in him, he hadn’t thought about Granger even once since she caught him with Blaise, since their little conversation, until Theo brought it up one afternoon after they’d had sex. As Draco stared at the ceiling trying - and failing - to hold on to the feelings he’d felt as his orgasm hit, Theo lit himself a cigarette, taking a long drag, his toned stomach still covered in his cum, Draco’s between his legs, as if he didn’t care, just like he didn’t seem to care about the bruises Draco left all over his body at his request.

‘Why does Granger keep looking at you?’ he asked.

‘She does?’ Draco wondered confused. He hadn’t notice. He noticed very little, he just did all the silly little things that were expected of him every day, then fucked or got fucked by someone just to feel something, not necessarily in that order.

‘Yeah. Did you do something bad again?’

Theo seemed mildly amused by the situation, as if the possibility of Draco being in trouble again could be the solution to some of his problems.

‘I didn’t, I barely do anything’ Draco sighted standing up, looking for his clothes.

‘You’re a good shag’ was the last thing Theo said to him before Draco closed the door behind him, walking barefoot on the cold stone floor of the dungeons back to his room.

He felt nothing.

* * *

Granger was, indeed, looking at him.

For a brief moment, Draco felt as if he was back in sixth year. When he still had a family, somewhat, friends who kind-of cared, back when he could feel things, when he felt alive and afraid for his life, not the shell of himself, more dead than the ghosts that roamed the castle.

‘Do you need something?’ he asked her one day.

Granger blushed, caught by surprise.

‘I-I… are you alright?’

‘Why do you care?’ he was utterly confused by her interest.

She was the undisputed winner, she could have had done everything she wanted, she had friends and family and all that Draco didn’t have anymore. So why, exactly, was she following him everywhere he went?

‘Right. Just…’

‘Is this because I was with a man?’

‘What?! No! As awkward as it was, it unfortunately wasn’t my first time walking in on someone… as Seamus and Dean were very eager after the war, much like everyone else seems very eager, to tell the truth’ she rambled on again, brow furrowed as if those human reactions were as hard to understand as an ancient runes translation, ‘but, that’s beside the point, just… uh, be careful, you know, take care of yourself’

Draco scoffed. He couldn’t help himself. Take care of himself. What a fucking joke.

He walked away without saying another word to her, looking for Theo.

* * *

After two months, just before Christmas, Theo became interested in someone else.

Draco watched as Theodore followed Luna Lovegood around castle, a smile on his face he hadn’t seen in years, the faint whisper of jealousy, of irritation, barely moving him.

As his mother had left for France after the war, probably to forget she had such a disappointing family, and as his father was to remain in Azkaban for another ten years, Draco faced the prospect of a lonely Christmas. More precisely: a lonely Christmas with no alcohol and no sex. He was more close to self harm than he was ready to admit, or maybe not. As the castle emptied he walked to the infirmary, telling Madam Pomfrey he was just _itching_ to take a knife and cut his left arm at the elbow.

She raised an eyebrow but gifted him with a two weeks worth supply of dreamless sleep potion and draught of the living dead, which, for Draco, was as valuable as a cabinet full of wine bottles, or a good shag that could stick around for a while. He went back to his room dreading the emptiness and the silence a little bit less, draining the first potion in one gulp and then letting himself fall on his bed still dressed.

He woke up the next day and then barely stripped off his clothes before he took another potion, and the again and again, hoping to continue the cycle until the holidays were over, until he could find someone else now that Blaise and Theo were otherwise engaged. A hope he was not allowed to have for long, because after taking the third potion, a draught of the living dead, he woke up to Hermione Granger practically looming over him, scowling at the collection of potions on his bedside table.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Why are you in my room?’

‘Is something wrong?’

At that, Draco’s jaw unconsciously clenched, his body going stiff, but no emotion took over his body. There was just mild annoyance, a pinch of anger.

‘Yeah, everything went to shit, in case you didn’t notice’

‘Because Voldemort lost?’ there was anger in her voice, and it irritated him.

‘My mother refuses to leave her cottage in France, my father is in prison with plenty, _plenty_ of good reasons, I have no friends and the whole world seems to hate me. As a bonus I get to have all the nice memories the Dark Lord left me with after he abused my father’s hospitality, so yes, everything went to shit, Granger’ Draco said through gritted teeth, trying to be as sarcastic as he used to be once, but his voice just came out cracked, bitter.

Something shifted in her face, pity that he refused to acknowledge. He tried to reach for another potion and she swatted his hand away.

‘I’m not your pity case. Don’t you have Potter and Weasley to bother? What are you even doing here?’ irritation was still mild in him. Draco got up from the bed and ignored Granger’s eyes on the scars on his chest, he walked to his trunk and took out a change of clothes, closing himself in the bathroom and waiting for her to leave by taking a shower.

When he came back, she was still there. Not only that, she’d made his bed and was currently sitting on it, carefully assessing the potions on his night stand.

‘Salazar, what now?’ he groaned. Couldn’t he just be left to spend his time in peace? No one cared if he wanted to drown himself in sleep potions and often-unsafe sex.

‘Do you only like men?’ Granger asked.

Draco sighed.

‘No’

‘I slept with Angelina before returning to Hogwarts. Ron never forgave me’

‘So we’re both bisexual and Weasley is still an idiot, thanks for the bit of gossip. Can you leave now?’

‘You should stop’ she said standing up. She looked nervous, and Draco was briefly thrilled at the fact that his irritation just kept growing. Maybe having her here asking far too private questions wasn’t _that_ bad.

‘Who I shag is most definitely none of your business, Granger’

‘Zabini and Nott are… otherwise engaged now, and there’s no one else who used to be… some people _really_ want to hurt you, you should be careful, I already talked to Headmistress McGonagall but you…’

‘I don’t care’

‘What if they hurt you?!’ she exclaimed shocked.

‘I. Don’t. Care.’ Draco repeated punctuating every word carefully. It only made her more stubborn.

‘Why do you want to hurt yourself?’ she asked in a whisper, big brown eyes fixed on him, and Draco let out a humourless laugh.

‘If you lot had been concerned about me in sixth year instead of condemning me on the spot, where would we be now?’ he wondered laying down on his bed again, Granger’s eyes never leaving him. ‘Why the fuck do you even care, Granger? What has gotten into you?’

She was still hoovering near his bed, looking around, hands fisting her skirt a little too tightly, her knuckles almost white.

‘So many have died and… I never liked you, but you don’t deserve to die’ her eyes were more sad than he’d ever seen them, and he wondered, briefly, curiosity lightly swirling in him, what had happened to her. She was the winner, wasn’t she supposed to be joyous?

Draco waited patiently for her to speak, and she did so only after looking away.

‘I lost my parents, I had to… obliviate them, and it cannot be reversed. it made it difficult to be around the Weasleys. I got drunk and slept with Angelina after Fred’s funeral, she told George after they got together and he told Ron, who thought I betrayed him even when I never… I never said we were together. It just happened because Angelina was there, at the same bar, and she listed to me, and I liked her and… I wanted to stop thinking for a second, but then like always, _like always_ , I get scolded and reprimanded for taking something for myself, for doing something that Harry and Ron don’t like and they turned our friendship into a weapon until I complied and I… ‘ she was practically screaming, tears flowing down her face, and Draco could do nothing but watch her, shocked at her display of anger ‘I feel so much sometimes I can’t breathe, and I slept with Angelina, and I liked it because my mind was quiet for a moment, and then Viktor came over and I slept with him too, and Ron got _so_ nasty, and Harry just _let_ him, and I…’

She started to sob and cry harder, sitting down at the foot of his bed while Draco tried to make sense of her words.

She felt too much. He felt nothing. What a pair they made.

He hadn’t even realised he’d said that out loud until she laughed softly, drying away her tears with the back of her hand.

‘I recognised the… copying mechanism, after I found you with Zabini. I just don’t want you to get hurt. I’ve heard whispers, people thinking about approaching you to hurt you. It’s disgusting, and despicable, and I will do everything to prevent it. It’s okay if you don’t feel fine, if you want to work it out that way, but I won’t let others take advantage of it, I won’t let them turn it into a weapon to hurt you. I know… how that feels like, and you don’t deserve it. I didn’t either.’

She seemed so sincere he was briefly touched by her concern. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had cared about his wellbeing, his mother, maybe, right after the battle, before she tried to forget him. Granger was sad, angry, overworked and overwhelmed, they’d briefly engaged into the same copying mechanism, although she seemed to prefer books where he would have gone for alcohol.

‘Do you usually talk this much?’ he asked in the end, not sure about what to say.

‘You used to talk a lot more, too, you know?’ there was a small smile curving her lips, her eyes red and puffed after the tears.

Draco tried to think about what to say to her, not really feeling much from their talk beside surprise at her words and behaviour, although it was undeniable that it _did_ move something inside of him, which was unusual, as nothing seemed to move him. Before he could say or think more, Granger seemed to reach some sort of conclusion before he did.

She stood up and took off her shoes, and then she was back on his bed, this time straddling his hips.

‘I know how we can solve this. You can fuck me’ she said reaching for her jumper and taking it off.

‘I don’t… think that’s a good idea’ he said frowning.

‘How do you like it? I’m okay with having it a bit rough. Being manhandled a bit. I don’t mind taking charge but I am not, and please don’t laugh, bossy in bed. Although I may have a bit of a praise kink’

She said all of that while slowly unbuttoning her shirt, straddling Draco’s hips as if it was normal, okay, as if she was’t the Golden Girl, as if he wasn’t a disgraced Death Eater, as if they hadn’t been nemesis for years, as if… her thighs warm and firm around him.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked in the end, hands hoovering near her waist but never really touching her. He could see a plain white bra peaking through her half open shirt, a part of him begging for more skin, begging to touch her, phantom feelings making his finger tingle.

When was the last time he fucked a woman? Was it Pansy before sixth year? Or Maybe Daphne, before the trials? He couldn’t remember exactly. What he did know was that he and Hermione Granger couldn’t fuck. They were nemesis, they were rivals, they were…

‘How do you like it, Draco?’

Her hands were warm on his chest as she bent down to get close to his face, his hands falling on her thighs. She was all warm, so warm, and he was so cold, had been for so long.

‘I don’t know’ he revealed, ‘I just want to feel something’

Granger was the first to ask, no one ever had before. Pansy had dragged him into a broom cupboard and demanded to be shagged, Daphne had pushed him into the sofa in his living room, unbuckled his trousers and rode him there without even taking off a single piece of clothing, just moving her knickers aside. Blaise had bent him over every uncomfortable surface he could find around the castle, and Theo had just ordered him to be rough.

‘Can you be gentle?’ he asked in a whisper, almost afraid of what she would say, wondering if she would laugh at him after seeing the way Blaise had fucked him, but Granger just nodded with a small smile as she closed the distance between them and kissed him.

She took off his clothes slowly, her hands soft, caressing him, kissing every inch of him, every scar, and it wasn’t hard, for once, just for once, to hold on to his feelings. She said his name as he buckled his hips against hers, not calling for someone else like Daphne, she didn’t seem repulsed by his scars like Theo, by his hands on her skin like Blaise.

She was _seeing_ him, and she _chose_ to keep going, she seemed to… like it, _him_.

Draco felt terror rise in him for the first time in what felt like forever.

‘I just stood there while she tortured you’ he said once they were both naked, she was still on top of him, her hand moving lazily on his cock, because he really couldn’t stop himself from sabotaging everything even remotely good that happened to him.

‘What could you have done? A crazy woman who has killed so many great wizards and witches before, parents who would have killed me to save you. You did what you could, you never told them it was us, you never confirmed, you stalled enough, we were able to get away, we were teenagers’

Something cracked in Draco’s chest, he squeezed his eyes shut, hands fisting the green sheets so hard he might rip them, the phantom pain of the cruciato that followed, the horror of the goblin’s massacre he was forced to witness, slowly flooding back in, fear, terror, anxiety…

Granger’s mouth was on his again, forgiving yet demanding, rough, as she slowly sank down on his cock, making him moan against her mouth.

‘Fuck, you feel good, so good’ she panted as she started to move, faster and faster.

She was so warm and tight Draco could barely keep it together, her moans in his ears making him shiver. It was different, from fucking Theo, Blaise, Daphne, even Pansy. Maybe it was because it was so forbidden, so improbable, in the way their cracks mirrored each other, similar yet opposites.

‘I should have gone down on you’ he muttered as he moved his hands to her breasts, as her hands scratched his chest as she moved faster and faster, chasing her relief.

‘Next time’ she managed to say between a moan and another, as Draco could do nothing but palm her ass, aid her movement and meet her hips, delighting in the way she made him feel seen, alive with feelings, even as conflicting as they were, even as fleeting as they still remained.

Her rhythm faltered, and Draco turned them around, pinning her underneath him, driving inside her bit more roughly until she came with a shout ricocheting off the stone walls, her hands on his ass spurring him on until he came inside her with a moan she stifled with her mouth.

‘How do you feel?’ she asked as he practically collapsed on her.

She didn’t seem to care about his weight on her, her fingers moving absentmindedly through his hair, her legs around him keeping him close even as his cock softened still inside her.

‘I can feel… something, but even if it’s still quiet, it’s not unpleasantly so’

‘Mh, same for me, mind blissfuly blank’ she murmured satisfied, something akin to pride almost making its way to Draco’s mind.

Almost.

* * *

She created a routine, as they helped to ease her mind. Draco dutifully followed, as he didn’t care all that much.

It created a ripple through the castle, after the holidays, as they started to move almost always together through the corridors. Students openly staring and pointing at them. Draco didn’t mind, it was just a source like another of faint feelings, even if they were unpleasant ones, but the more time he spent with Granger, the more he started to feel things again, each day a little deeper than the one before. Her hands on him were like a balm, her chatter as healing as dittany, and he couldn’t pinpoint what happened, why it happened, but by the time the NEWTs were almost upon them, he could feel anxiety again, real anxiety, and dread for the future, sadness for his fractured family.

Granger, somehow, seemed less on edge, less stiff, more relaxed. It was unbelievable to Draco that it was because of him, that his presence, his hands, his mouth, his chipped conversations could have yielded such results. They balance each other in the most unexpected way, his quiet mind soaking in the restlessness from hers, the pain stinging a little bit less, happiness lingering in their minds for a little more than a handful of seconds.

He had no idea of what would happen afterwards, outside the freshly rebuilt Hogwarts’ walls, where her carefully constructed schedule would not work, where he would be forced back into the Manor by a society that despised him, and she would be somewhere else, with Potter, but maybe not Weasley.

She demanded the truth from him - her only rule - the truth of his thoughts and feelings, she gave hers in return, and their companionship was so unexpected Draco didn’t even know how tell her that he regretted it now that he understood what he would have to go back to: an empty life after tasting peace, acceptance, in her arms. It was better to get fucked on cold dusty classrooms floors, it was easier to let himself drown in firewhiskey. She’d tried to help him and instead she’d just condemned him to something worse.

‘What do you think about this?’ she asked passing him a small brochure over their table at the library, a stack of notes between them. She’d insisted he studied with her and his marks had dramatically improved, so much so he had a chance to get an O on more than one NEWT, not that anyone would hire him anyway, or talk to him, beside her.

Draco took the colourful brochure in his hands, looking over the pictures of what looked like a rather cozy flat in a Georgian style house, a mix of antique and modern furniture that didn’t look too bad, warm colours, red of course, but also some greens.

‘What is it?’ he asked like an idiot.

It was a flat, he knew it was a flat, the rent absurdly high, of course, because London, and muggles.

‘Do you like it?’ was all she gave as an answer, eyes on him, carefully assessing.

‘It looks cozy’ he muttered, and she beamed, actually _beamed_ at him, making something flutter in Draco’s stomach. She rarely looked at him like that outside his room or hers, when they weren’t trying to forget the world and their own self sabotaging minds by indulging in each other’s bodies, in each other’s presence.

‘We can put down the deposit immediately, make sure we get it, then’ she said taking the brochure back, looking at the pictures with a smile curving her lips, her eyes shining like melted gold in the warm light of the sunset. ‘I wanted something with a garden, to be fair, I always wanted a garden, but I figured this will do, for a while. You know? If we want something more… there’s still… your house, if you ever want to… fix it up’ she bit her lips as she mentioned the Manor, brows knotted, as if she wasn’t sure it was a topic she could breach, whether with herself or with him, Draco didn’t know.

‘We?’ he repeated, still dumbfounded, a feeling he couldn’t recognise washing over him, claiming _all_ of him. It was warm, it was pleasant, it was…

‘Yeah’ she murmured, looking over his shoulder, avoiding his eyes, blushing, ‘ _we_.’

Draco sucked in a breath.

‘We’re a mess’ he said, because he had to.

‘We are’ she agreed, her eyes finally on him again, bright, almost happy, ‘but we’re a little less when we’re together. And it feels good, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah’ was all Draco could say, the future suddenly becoming something other than darkness, colours and emotions flooding in. ‘I think we balance each other quite nicely’ he added with a small, tentative smile that made her shine even more.

‘We really do’ Hermione agreed, reaching for his hand.

Maybe, despite everything, they could make it. Taste happiness again, in the most improbable way. 


End file.
